Kvitova Advances With Win At Connecticut Open

PAUL DOYLE, pdoyle@courant.com

NEW HAVEN — One by one, the leading contenders have fallen and the lesser lights have advanced.

As the Connecticut Open moves into the semifinals, one seeded player remains. Petra Kvitova, the 2012 New Haven champion and a 2013 finalist, advanced with a win Thursday and stands alone in a depleted field.

Kvitova, the second seed, won her quarterfinal match against Barbora Zahlavova Strycova (6-4, 6-1), continuing her run amid a week of upsets. Top seed and defending champion Simona Halep lost Tuesday, four-time champion and No. 4 seed Caroline Wozniacki was ousted Wednesday afternoon, just hours before third-seed Genie Bouchard was eliminated.

Does Kvitova see an opportunity?

"Not really," the Czech Republic star said Thursday. "I mean, yeah, it was lots of upsets the past few days. But this is tennis, it's the tournament, it's the beauty of our sport. I'm not feeling anything. I'm just feeling well on the court, which is important for me right now. I will just focus on my next opponent, and that's it."

Kvitova's next opponent will be Samantha Stosur of Australia, who outlasted Belgium's Kirsten Flipkens 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in a quarterfinal match Thursday night. Stosur, the 2011 U.S. Open champion, is playing for the fifth time at New Haven, and this is only her second semifinal appearance (her first was in 2006, when she was a qualifier and lost to Lindsay Davenport). Kvitova is making her fourth appearance in the tournament and has won 10 of 12 matches at New Haven.

In the other quarterfinal match Thursday afternoon, American Alison Riske — who garnered crowd support this week — fell short with a loss to Magdalena Rybarikova (7-5, 0-6, 6-4). Rybarikova's semifinal opponent will be Camila Giorgi, a 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-2 winner against Garbine Muguruza in the quarterfinals Thursday.

Giorgi, ranked 38th in the world, upset Wozniacki for her 11th career win against a top 20 player.

When the tournament began, nine of the top 20 players in the world were competing at the Connecticut Tennis Center. It's now down to Kvitova, who beat Bouchard in the Wimbledon final two months ago to secure her second title at the All England Club. She is currently ranked fourth in the world and could rise with a strong showing at the U.S. Open.

In her quarterfinal match, Kvitova won the first game of the first set before losing three games in a row. Zahlavova Strycova led 4-2 before Kvitova reeled off four games in a row to secure the first set.

The second was far less challenging. Kvitova dropped the second game but was otherwise perfect.

"I thought I had to be really prepared physically, mentally," Kvitova said. "I wasn't ready from the beginning. But then I was trying to, you know, get little bit more comfortable on the court then."

Kvitova has never advanced past the fourth round at the U.S. Open, but she might be a player to watch this year. For now, though, she is focusing on work at New Haven.

"To be honest, I'm not really think it's preparation for the U.S. Open," Kvitova said. "If I'm here, I want to play my best tennis and have the great result I can. Every match I step on the court, I want to win. I'm not just thinking it's match to warm up before the U.S. Open. I can't really think like that."

Riske upset Kvitova in the third round of the U.S. Open last year, gaining attention as a rising American player. She came to New Haven to play matches in advance of the Open, but she was hoping for more.

"Obviously, it's great to get a couple wins," Riske said. "I would have loved to have won [Thursday]. It gives me a few days to prepare for my first round in New York. So that's positive, too."

Rybarikova is ranked 68th in the world, but she has defeated Halep and has advanced as a crowd favorite.

"It's little bit different, you know," Rybarikova said. "It's not like maybe 10 years ago, when the top players are like all the time [in the] semifinal and quarterfinal. Now every player — if [they're ranked] 80, if it's 100, 70 — they can beat the top 10 player. It's just so different now."